


Keep the air in your lungs, keep the light on your wrist

by ithilielthechosenone



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Because I want them to be happy, Happy Ending, Lie Low At Lupin's (Harry Potter), M/M, Memory Loss, Pining, but it's very temporary, in which most of the difficult stuff happens off screen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-03
Updated: 2020-08-03
Packaged: 2021-03-05 22:13:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,242
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25692607
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ithilielthechosenone/pseuds/ithilielthechosenone
Summary: Behold. They are all short of marbles and full of things unsaid, undone, and untried.Summer 1994- In a house in Wales the lines of their lives intertwine again: a collectionor, Sirius moves in with Remus instead of going on the run and the rest is history.
Relationships: Sirius Black/Remus Lupin
Comments: 20
Kudos: 101





	Keep the air in your lungs, keep the light on your wrist

**Author's Note:**

> Title taken from Fionn Regan's song The Ocean Wave  
> Thank you, A and F for the beta read.  
> I chose to ignore the canon timeline completely, inaccuracies may occur. Enjoy nevertheless :)

_Every story has to begin somewhere_ , Remus thinks, turning the frayed edges of his mother's knitted quilt over and over in his hands. He knows the appeal of starting in the middle of the action, no explanations, no introductory words, just a jump into the cold water of unknown story telling. Those are the books he enjoys the most. This, however, is not a beginning. Nor is it an end at that, even if it fucking feels like one. But Remus has often mistaken the impending catastrophe that is his own life for the end of all things, nevermind that Lord of the Rings reference. Most of the stories he has read do not end with chaos and confusion, at least not the good ones.

Chaos and Confusion, however, is currently sitting on the sofa next to him. Chaos and Confusion has been sitting there for quite a while, staring at the half-heartedly singed edges of a picture Remus wishes he had forgotten about. Christmas 1976 or sometime in that December, two laughing boys who liked to call themselves young men. Sirius with a bottle of Firewhiskey in one hand and Remus's shoulders in the other. One look at his own eyes, bright with drink and stupid, fleeting happiness that had felt eternal at the time reminds him why he's never managed to burn it once and for all. It is an unnatural state of calm for Chaos and Confusion, which admittedly makes him even more confusing than he already was.

The good news:

Remus knows what he is supposed to feel. He always does. In this particular situation, he should be feeling comfort and relief. Comfort because this is his home and there is nothing exceptionally discomfiting about that, relief because Sirius is innocent and safe and precisely where he is supposed to be for once.

The issue:

Remus is decidedly experiencing neither of those two options of suitable emotions. That is, he is not sure he is having emotions at all unless one named _Sirius_ has suddenly become an acceptable thing to be felt. How are you today? Oh, I'm feeling so very Sirius Black, you know. Ah yes, sad to hear it, that does get under one's skin, doesn't it?

Sirius (who is sitting on _his_ rugged sofa, in _his_ childhood living room, in Nowhere, North Wales) chooses that exact moment in the middle of Remus's contemplation to speak. His voice has lost the gravel and hoarseness it had carried in the first few days of his stay here, a fact that is both a blessing and a curse.

“Your jumper has the same color as the one in this picture. Funny how that goes, isn't it?” He puts the picture down and Remus can see him take a deep breath.

“It's a nice color, what can I say?” He answers, almost immediately.

“It makes you look like a Victorian stable boy dying of tuberculosis.”

“Ah, I thought you'd never figure out my secret, I've been a time traveler all along.”

It is in moments like this, Remus thinks, that he truly feels like he's traveled back in time. The paradox of the matter is, it is also in moments like this that the stretch of thirteen years (unlucky number for unlucky werewolves or whatever the advertisement slogan for that would be) seems less like a reachable distance, but more like an unending gap in time itself ( _It is,_ he thinks _, it actually is_ ). Sirius snorts out a gratifying half-laugh and Remus forgets to berate himself for even feeling thankful. Self-control has always been more difficult with Sirius around. Evidently, that has not changed. Patti Smith is singing _Free Money_ somewhere on the ground behind them where Sirius had put up his mother's old record player, that is most definitely older than even the mere thought of Remus's existence. It had been the first sign of him taking up space in this house, finally more than a ghost between the yellowing wallpapers of Remus's living room.

“ _Every night before I rest my head, see those dollar bills go swirling 'round my bed. I know they're stolen, but I don't feel bad.”_

Sirius has been looking at him with clearer eyes these past few days. They had talked, yes, but none of their words had touched upon the open wound there, shared between them; the dull ache Remus has been carrying in his breast since he was twenty-one and the world did not end. Behind the selfish mask of wanting to spare Sirius the memories and regret, Remus has hidden his own cowardice in a tangle of ready-made small talk and sarcastic commentary. The truth, simple and quite difficult to ignore, is that Remus does not know what to do. Not for the first time in his life, he is completely and utterly inadequate. Every word he says or might say or might perhaps want to say is not enough, every gesture and gift and even his most daring attempts at helping are all inevitable failures.

It's fine, he tries to tell himself. He quite expected it all to be different. There is, after all, a lengthy divide of time there between _then_ and _now_ , the gaping darkness of thirteen years spent apart. For them to return to how they had been _before,_ to build that bridge in the small amount of weeks they have been taking up the same space again, would be an unrealistically optimistic expectation. Remus has gotten so very well-versed in never getting his own hopes up that they might as well hand him a degree for it. He is nothing if not an expert at self-reflection. Call it hypocrisy, call it bravery, foolishness or what have you but despite his rather pessimistic outlook on the minor catastrophe that is his own life, Remus goes out of his way to preach the exact opposite of that mind set to the greater or smaller public whenever he can, little “Never give up”s that are genuine but have always made Sirius laugh for the juxtaposition of hearing them out of Remus's mouth.

He wishes Sirius would at least laugh again. Theoretically he knows not to expect too much but that has never prevented Remus from wanting. Sirius's unhappiness feels like a personal failure and it hurts him just a bit more than he is ready to admit. As always, is a problem truly that great when you can choose to ignore it still? Under normal circumstances, it would go like this: Two school friends or lovers or each other's fucking universes if you will, that are trying to become reacquainted, sit down at a table or on a sofa or even on the floor with a glass of wine and talk until the distance is no longer so vast, the chasm not as deep. But Sirius has spent twelve years in the governmental torture tower and Remus has been half-alive for just as long, they have changed too little to start anew and too much to carry on. It is what it is and what it always has been, they are the exception to the rules. There is the abyss, there is the dark, and here is the half-step off that precipice.

Patti Smith is on the record player, Sirius is watching him, Remus is watching Sirius and suddenly, violently, he is tired of dancing around meaningless table conversation. “Could you pass me the butter, please?” “Here you are” “Thank you” “You're welcome”, always making sure that their fingers or shoulders or knees don't touch. To touch would be an open invitation for the chaos Sirius regularly causes in Remus's intestines and the confusion he himself in turn seems to inflict on Sirius.

“We could maybe try to bake something,” he suggests then because when has he not been ready to sacrifice his own dignity to make Sirius happy?

A squirrel hops onto the windowsill outside behind the armchair, sniffs at the glass for a moment before looking up at Remus in a manner that seems strangely intentional. By the time he notices that it is actually a red one, not the typical English grey he has become so used to seeing, it is gone. Sirius furrows his brows and Remus feels something crumble inside him. Maybe Sirius has forgotten what baking is and Remus is only pressing salt into the open wound. No one _just_ escapes from a physical manifestation of multiple people's darkest nightmares and makes it to the other side with their mind perfectly intact. Let's do this then, comrade partial amnesia because destiny or the stars or something thought it would be a great idea. “Baking. The- the thing with an oven that you do to biscuits?”

“Yes,” Remus says a bit too loud to sound normal but when has the concept of normalcy ever applied to either of them? “I was thinking about making a cake actually! I found a few of my mother's recipes and I'd really like to try the chocolate one. You don't need a lot of fancy ingredients for that.”

Sirius's eyes soften in a manner that is so painfully familiar that Remus's breath catches. _So maybe sometimes time doesn't bring as much change as you thought it would._ Sometimes he wonders if he will have to die to ever stop loving Sirius or if even that would only get the job done halfway through. Sometimes he wonders if he really wants to know the answer. How can you love someone you hated more than anything? The twelve year-old question has been replaced by _how can you still love someone who, for all you know, does not remember ever loving you?_

“You are shit at baking, aren't you? I mean I think that you are. Or were at that, I guess I can't really know for sure. You could've become a professional baker or something.” Sirius stands and cracks his back rather loudly. Remus tries valiantly not to flinch at the sound.

“No, you're right. I have no idea what to do. I just... thought we could maybe try.”

 _Oh, baby, it would mean so much to me,_ Patti Smith helpfully supplies from behind them.

“Yeah, sure. I mean you're going to regret that decision but why the fuck not, yeah?”

“Yes. Why the fuck not?”

_And when we dream it, when we dream it, when we dream it. Let's dream it, we'll dream for free, free money._

He doesn't actually manage to get Sirius to laugh. But after they have somehow succeeded in shoving what Remus hopes is dough into what he thinks is the oven there is flour in his hair, cocoa on both of their clothes and for a moment, their shoulders brush where they are sitting next to each other on the floor. Remus makes sure his breath stays as steady as possible but he can feel Sirius flinch away. Then, slowly, unmistakably deliberate, he inches closer again so that their arms just barely brush. Remus does not move and then it doesn't seem quite as monumental any longer. “I didn't know that much could possibly go wrong,” he admits and Sirius smiles.

* * *

“I'm not stupid, you know. Never have been,” Remus says suddenly two days later, putting away Sirius's untouched cup of tea and charming the leftover pasta into a purple Tupperware that might be older than he himself is. Sirius is pushing a hole through the wool of a borrowed jumper and hasn't been talking in more than vague noises of denial or affirmation all day. There has been a letter from Dumbledore or so Remus suspects. Sirius hasn't talked about it. It's great to see how fast they can resort to old mistakes, the two of them and the trust they thought they held between them. It's the principle of the thing, really. “So feel free to maybe enlighten me as to what the fuck is going on.”

Sirius stares at him unblinkingly for a moment and the lack of any sign of emotion on his face almost feels like a punch directed at somewhere around his midsection. Sirius finally does speak, the first real words he has said all day. “You don't always need to know everything.” Remus prides himself in being a logical person. Emotions, however, are far harder to explain away and Sirius has always managed to dig out the fastest way to Remus's anger with a surgeon's trained precision. Remus has often wondered how he was able to pull the tempestuous tsunami of Remus's moods in completely opposite directions with but a few words. Magic, he has thought sometimes, maybe Sirius has always been capable of a specific kind of magic that Remus had lost all access to when a shadow larger than life had broken into his childhood bedroom. But then again, Sirius had once said the same about him.

Fury, the nails on their very own crucifix of damned mistrust.

“Yeah, sure. That worked out great before.”

“Don't- You can't- This isn't the same at all.”

Somehow Remus delights the slightest bit in hearing Sirius splutter. There is a hurt there, deep in his chest that he has been guarding close to his heart for a small lifetime and at times it has become all he can feel. There is the taste of revenge in making Sirius stumble across his own disbelief that blinds Remus, for once, to the consequences. “Oh, isn't it? You've learnt nothing at all and still expect everything to turn out differently. Someone else is going to fix it for you. Someone else is going to take care of the mess!”

“What is this? A lecture? You're not my fucking professor!”

“That's not even-, fuck you don't get it at all, do you?”

A wild dog will bite when vexed for too long and children will break their toys just to get their mother's attention. Remus is not quite sure which metaphor applies to whom in this scenario and is faintly amazed that his mind still has the capacities to muse over the deeper meanings of literary devices. Sirius's eyes flash, steel and hardened silver and Remus is sure he would have flinched had he not been as familiar with their every change in shade.

“I don't get what? That you're scared as shit? That you're going all fucking feral right now because you can't stop living in the past long enough to see that not everything is as big of a deal as you make it out to be? I don't even _remember_ half of the shit you're probably going to accuse me of right now!”

The age old argument. They should have seen it coming.

“If you're going to start keeping secrets again, it seems like a big deal!”

“You're one to talk! No wonder I believed the rat when all you've ever done is hide. I forgot when my own birthday was but I remember your fucking evasion techniques. You're not better than everyone else just because you're the emotional equivalent of a volcano with constipation.”

“You have no right to say that. I never kept more from you than absolutely necessary.”

“So did I!”

“How the fuck can you say that and be so sure if you don't remember half of it?”

“I know I was in love with you. I know I loved you and I don't remember ever stopping, that's how.”

There, that. Remus is silent for a moment. He had wondered whether Sirius had truly forgotten. There's a part of him, a rather large one, the one he has been quietly nursing for thirteen years, the one that has tied a noose around his heartstrings back in March 1975 when Sirius had kissed him for the first time in stumbling fifteen-year-old folly, that almost feels elated. Remus has long ignored it with masterful carefulness. Fear is the enemy. Anger is so much easier to manage.

“Don't- don't fucking do that, Sirius! You have no idea, not a fucking idea! There isn't just you in that equation, you know? Do you want to know your fucking secret?”

Remus is trying to be cruel now. He wants to blame it on the beast, the sudden wish to hurt Sirius, to dig his nails into his rib cage, the place where he knows Sirius's heart is, and rip it out while it still beats, oozing blood and ugly tearing arteries and all. But what is the concept of cruelty if not painfully human?

“You had just destroyed my entire life, everyone I loved was dead and I was blaming you. I hated you more than Voldemort himself. I told myself I wanted to see you rot, that you deserved every last second of torture Azkaban could offer. But you're like a fucking werewolf bite yourself and you cursed me to fucking pieces. I spent thirteen years in love with a murderer. I was terrified you'd suddenly turn up at my door when I heard you'd escaped because I didn't trust myself not to let you in. I kept seeing you in my dreams and it wouldn't have been difficult. You could've done me in within a second. So don't fucking come at me with your bullshit.”

“No, fuck you, Remus. I'm not like some sort of plot device to further your martyr complex!”

“And I'm not Jesus. So stop expecting fucking miracles. I'm not your substitute moral compass.”

Both of them are silent for a while, the clock's ticking from the hallway almost unnervingly loud. The blood is still rushing in Remus's ears but somehow he isn't quite as angry anymore. Balloons inflate after being kept for too long. But then another sound startles him out of his half-trance. Sirius, in Remus's mismatched socks and a jumper two sizes too small, throws his head back and laughs, baring the column of his throat.

Nostalgia has always been Remus's sinful indulgence of choice but this is better than any of his dearly cherished memories. It is the most beautiful sound Remus has heard in a while. Faintly he wonders if it is possible to choke on the timbre of a ring of laughter and smiles, a little brighter, a little fuller than before. Damn all thoughts of furious blame. They'll cut him open to investigate his death and find the letter's of Sirius's name in a thousand different languages tangled inside his lungs.

“ _Here lies Remus John Lupin. He loved long walks through the forest and choking on Sirius Black in more ways than one.”_ Sirius looks at him again then and grins. “Dumbledore. He asked questions about Grimmauld. I have no idea why.”

And with that, the last stitches have been pulled. “I don't remember much about this Jesus fellow but you are infinitely more handsome than he ever was,” Sirius adds, folding one leg underneath him so that he sits with his hips slightly tilted to the side.

“I'm pretty sure that's blasphemy,” Remus laughs.

“I'm a Black, we're above religion. And besides if God really created humanity, won't He like me waxing poetry about the beauty of your hands? Praising His creation and all that, something something may the force be with you?”

“And with your spirit. We should never have watched Star Wars.”

Sirius shrugs and tosses his head to prevent a strand of hair from falling into his eyes in a manner that has always resembled the dog he sometimes is.

_Lord, I am not worthy that you should enter under my roof, but only say the word and my soul shall be healed._ Remus wants to touch Sirius's hands where they rest on the kitchen table. He turns back to put the kettle on.

* * *

“Harry has been asking about you. I think you were his favorite teacher for a while back there.”

Remus raises an eyebrow and busies himself with the record player. He is growing tired of listening to the same Patti Smith album over and over again. Sirius will deny it until he grows hoarse but the scratch in the middle of Gloria: In Excelsis Deo always makes him flinch and cover his ears and Remus has been trying to make sure there are as little obstacles as possible in Sirius's route towards whatever version of healing and normalcy he may have. And besides, he has finally found the Ziggy Stardust record Sirius had gifted him for his 19 th  birthday. He waits for Sirius to continue and gently puts the needle down. The introductory drum sequence of _Five Years_ signifies his success and Remus stands to walk over to the sofa, wincing as his knees crack rather loudly.

Sirius shifts to make room for him, slightly crinkling the letter's already dog-eared edges. “Here is a one time opportunity to make your life a hell of a lot more interesting than it actually is, Moony, what should I tell him? That you are about to go on a cruise to the Caribbean? Research trip to the Antilles? Or would you prefer a romantic sojourn to an old German town of your choice?”

He takes a long drink from the cup in front of him, winking at Remus and performing a strange sort of half-salute. “Cheers” when Remus knows very well he is drinking warm milk. He half-heartedly plucks a few black hairs from his trousers and tries to throw them at Sirius while he is busy rubbing his eye but they stick to his fingers and he only ends up wiping them on his trousers again. Remus doesn't really try to analyze the deeper meaning of black dog-hair and his sticky fingers, it's not as if he hasn't exhausted every symbol, irony, and metaphor already when it comes to Sirius Black Esquire so on and so forth.

“Not Germany, maybe,” Sirius adds, tossing his head again and flicking an eyelash onto the ground in front of him, “I haven't been paying attention to the news in years, I don't even know how many Germanies there are at the moment. How did they know which one was which anyway. Did they just call it Germany No. 1 and Germany No. 2? I'm pretty sure that's something I'm supposed to know.”

“I'm pretty sure it's _a_ country. Singular. Fall of the Berlin Wall and Reunion and all that. You missed quite a bit of historically important events there. And I believe they called it Federal Republic of Germany and German Democratic Republic. Very well studied, 10 points to Gryffindor and class dismissed.”

“How _are_ you so smart? How does all of that information, that is fairly irrelevant to our current situation, fit into that brain of yours?”

Remus can see him out of the corner of his eyes without even having to look up and the thought soothes him rather more than he would like to admit. Being close to Sirius at times feels like sitting next to a living furnace of imagined heat, as bright as his name sake and Remus knows he would give his life to never see it dim. Sirius is and has always been the more openly protective of the two of them but Remus is nothing if not aware of his own thoughts and emotions and _I would gladly die for you a million times over_ has secured itself a permanent place somewhere in the mess that is the part of his brain mostly occupied by Sirius. He moves closer to peer at the letter, making sure to give Sirius the space he secretly hopes he doesn't need, not even letting the fabric of Sirius's shirt and his jumper touch.

“Is any information ever actually irrelevant? I mean context is everything in almost every situation and who knows when formerly unimportant pieces of information suddenly become valuable?”

Sirius shakes his head and Remus looks up just in time to see him smile.

“I see. You haven't really changed at all.”

 _I have and yet I haven't and I wanted to blame you but can only blame myself._ Remus almost answers but chooses to stare very intently at his lap instead. Sirius seems to have caught the sudden change in mood. His ability to read a situation has returned after a few weeks under Remus's roof, which has become _their_ roof and that makes it invaluably sweeter. He folds the letter more gently than Remus thinks he has handled anything in quite a while, takes another sip of milk and sets it down onto the coffee table. It needs dusting, Remus thinks.

“I'll write him that I'm living with you.”

“That's dangerous, Sirius.”

“I won't state it outright, obviously. He'll have to read between the lines. I'm sure it'll be nice for him to hear that we're both of us doing just fine.”

“I think you give too much weight to my lasting impression. Harry probably only asked how I was because he wanted to be polite and knows we are... close.”

“Now, now, don't underestimate yourself, Professor Lupin. You were many a pupil's favorite teacher. “

Remus sighs, only half exasperated. “I'll never live that down, will I?”

Sirius grins at him cheerfully, clinking his nails against his half-empty cup. They don't need cutting, Remus notices, and it has been a while since he last reminded Sirius to shave yet there is not a trace of stubble on his cheeks. Progress is the loss of hated facial hair and it tastes like hot milk instead of burning whiskey.

“I think you should write to Harry as well. In fact, I'm very sure he would like that. I'm... not really Adult of the Year material and maybe it'd be nice for him to talk to an actual grown up person who cares about him once in a while.”

Remus wants, once again to pull Sirius into his arms and hold him there until the darkness that has suddenly overtaken his eyes flees at the weight of all the love he has for him, cracks in the facade and all. He doesn't. He isn't sure Sirius wouldn't suffocate under it.

“He has Molly,” he answers instead.

“Molly isn't you. You're rather different from each other or so I would hope.”

Remus turns then to look fully at Sirius and finds that he is already facing him. The pitiful truth is that he has wanted to be a part of Harry's life since he first held him fourteen years ago. Failure and Remus Lupin: The story Continues Episode 119080- he should have tried harder to reach Harry in all that time he spent being sorry for himself but instead had let shame dig deeper the hole between them that time had begun to make until it was too late.

“I- I'll just write to him a couple of times. See if he likes it. Whatever he chooses to tell me is his to decide then.”

There is a stalled movement there that Remus almost misses. Sirius has reached out towards him only to drop his hand to his side again. “You're actually scared of talking to Harry aren't you? You've fought Voldemort and seen your friends' blown out intestines but you're afraid of talking to a teenage boy?”

Remus shrugs and tries to school his expression into something more neutral. If it turns out half as terrible as he thinks it does, Sirius will know the truth anyway so he gives up trying after a few seconds.  
“I essentially left him there to rot even though Lily told me all about her sister. Oh and what about the night his parents' murderer escaped and his godfather had to go into hiding because I forgot to take my fucking potion? He probably has a very fine idea indeed about me and I can't say I could blame him.”

“Oh, Moony.” There it is again, Sirius's eyes soften to the gentlest hue of velvety silver and Remus suddenly wants to brush his thumb right there underneath his bottom lip.

“You're not half as bad as you make yourself out to be and not everyone is constantly trying to make a mental list of all your faults.”

Remus nods, he should have learnt to hide such childish bursts of self-pity long ago, 34 years old and none the wiser. But Harry is incredibly _important._

How do you breach almost a life time of distance, how do you tell someone you have loved them since you first looked upon them when in your mind there is a gap between crawling baby and brilliant teenager. As always, the Lupin Problem: How to build a bridge that once did not need building? Rhetorical questions and non-rhetorical answers and Remus still hasn't learnt anything.

* * *

_Dear ~~Professor Lupin~~ , ~~Mr Lupin~~ Remus, _

_You did say I was supposed to call you that but it's very difficult, mind you. It's weird because I keep thinking that you're still my professor and could you imagine calling Professor McGonaggall by her first name? You probably do, I forgot about that but still. It's hard and I'm probably going to forget not to call you Professor Lupin every once in a while._

_Thank you for writing to me, it's been really boring out here with nothing much to do. I'll go out to the Burrow in a few weeks and I really can't wait to see Ron and Hermione again. We're going to the Quidditch world cup, can you believe that? I mean I already told Snuffles all about it so you probably know all about it. He says you really liked Quidditch but never tried out for the team yourself. What position would you have liked to play? I like Seeker best obviously but I think I would've made a passable Chaser as well. You have to be fast for that, too._

_My dad was a Chaser, wasn't he? Was he very good? I don't think Mum played Quidditch but maybe she liked to watch. Which team did they support? Ron always cheers for the Chudley Cannons and I do as well even though they're really quite terrible. Ginny likes the Hollyhead Harpies and I think they have a very interesting team this year!_

_Snuffles told me we can use Hedwig because the letters go to your address. That's great! I was a bit worried but now I'm not anymore. I'm not really good at writing letters but Hermione says I am leagues better than Ron ever will be so I guess I can't be that terrible. And you're not my professor anymore so you can't judge my spelling._

_Obviously I would prefer if you still were my professor. All of us would. I don't know who we'll get in DADA this year but I'm pretty sure they won't be as good. Bill told Ron that no one ever set practical exams before but Defense is pretty useless without the practice, isn't it?_

_I hope you'll write again soon and give Snuffles my best,_

_Yours_

_Harry_

_PS: It feels a bit girly to put 'Yours' under a letter but that's what Hermione says I should put there. Is it girly? I think I like it anyway._

* * *

Remus falls asleep reading on his bed one evening, the bed that he has given over to Sirius whose back hurts too much when he tries to sleep on the sofa. He wakes up in the morning to find himself still dressed in his day-clothes, the book not anywhere near him and a very breathing, very living person stirring behind him. They stare for only a few moments before Sirius assures him that the bed is quite big enough for both of them, more bones than flesh as they both are and that Remus should quit sleeping on the sofa in a self-sacrificial act of martyrdom with his back as the offering. Remus who has been his own worst enemy since he could grasp the concept of indulgence, does not try to argue.

So they have been sleeping on opposite sides of the same bed for about a week now and with even less space to hide whatever it is they pretend not to be doing, Remus has caught Sirius looking at him more often than not and sometimes (or always, who can really tell the difference) he wants to shake him and scream at him to finally do it. Whatever _it_ might end up being. They haven't really dealt with the issue of Sirius's remembering yet but there is the fire of something holy burning between the both of them, every insolent stare thrown back in kind, every almost-touch, every word pronounced just so. Remus is very fond of that particular turn of phrase, _the both of us_ , and every damnably blessed thing that comes with it. It is one morning in the bed that has now somehow become _theirs_ that Sirius suddenly mentions it. Remus is still wearing his pyjamas but forgets to feel undressed when Sirius sits back down on the mattress fully clothed after having been to the bathroom.

“It's... memories are weird. Azkaban messes with your head in more ways than one and like... sometimes there's a thought and I can't really be sure if it's actually a thought or a memory or whatever. Like I'll brush my teeth and there it is. A memory-thought.”

“Anything in particular my bathroom inspires you to remember or think about?”

Sirius doesn't stop looking at him. If anything, he does it more deliberately and Remus almost shivers.

“Usually?” He smooths a hand across the bed sheet. “You. I mean that's not much of a surprise. I'm in your house and everything smells... well I don't know if it smells like you used to because I don't remember what you used to smell like but it's you, I think. I recognized it when I first came to live here so I reckon it hasn't really changed much. I mean can a person's smell change? Isn't that sort of permanent? Like a birth mark?”

_You are like a birth mark,_ Remus thinks wildly, _you've been coded into my genetics. I can try to scratch you out of my skin and you'll come back. I never had a choice but to fall in love with you._

He dares to look up at Sirius without screaming the words into the swirling grey of those precious, dearest eyes.

“I don't think that's quite right,” he says instead,” Maybe I can help, though. Discern whether it's a memory or a thought, I mean. I've got to have been present for it if it's a memory, yeah?”

Sirius looks at him for a moment very intently and moves closer, just slightly. Hardly even noticeable if Remus hadn't been paying attention to Sirius Black's every move since September 1971. There is a glimmer in Sirius's eyes. Remus takes it as a challenge.

“Extra points if I remember the year.”

Sirius laughs and despite the fact that Remus has heard him laugh more frequently ever since their argument two weeks ago, it still makes something shiver deep inside him. He swallows it, buries his nails a bit deeper in his palm and keeps looking at Sirius, always looking at Sirius.

“You and a giant pot of ferns that are larger than your fucking head. I keep thinking about your face next to that monstrosity of a plant and like I'm pretty sure that's a memory. Not even Azkaban lets you make shit like that up.”

Remus smiles and this time, it reaches into the farthest corners of his eyes, every last golden fleck in his irises. “Easy,” he says, “Summer 1978. Moving in.”

Sirius nods and it seems unusually solemn.

“See, I remember us living together but more like... a fact that I read about, something that I watched happen instead of having lived through it. So there's pieces I keep remembering, actually remembering, like you and that plant or the balcony or playing Bowie so loud the downstairs neighbors came banging against the door but like that's it. And I don't know how much of the forgetting I've done in the past thirteen years is normal and what parts the Dementors sucked out of me.”

Remus is seized by the sudden urge to cry but Sirius is remembering even if it's just bits and pieces and that's more than he ever dared hope for when he even allowed himself to hope at all.

“That's all good, though,” he says and if his voice is a little shaky neither of them comment on it,” You're remembering a lot. You're doing really well, Pads.”

He hadn't meant to let the nickname slip out. A nickname for a nickname, silly young children who still thought they had a future. _There might yet be one,_ Remus thinks in a sudden burst of uncharacteristic optimism. It might not turn out the way they had expected it to be but does it ever? Can anyone really say, _this is precisely how I thought it would be,_ white picket fence dream or not?

Sirius looks at him strangely and Remus who still knows those eyes better than he ever bothered to get to know his own, recognizes something that once had precedented a kiss or a touch or more and he finds himself longing to know if he could still channel it like that. All that time ago, he had held a power over Sirius that came from giving himself over so completely, he wasn't sure where one ended and the other began. There was a certain strength to vulnerability and Remus finds himself wishing to feel it again.

“Then,” Sirius continues, “ there's you in a suit or something, smoking with- with Lily. I never forgot what they looked like, you know, James and Lily. And Peter, too. It wasn't a happy thought because I knew they were dead, no matter what happened I always knew the were gone. The Dementors couldn't really take that. So I kept remembering _their_ faces but at one point something was missing and when I tried to remember what it was I'd only come up with like vague browns and tea or something. So I suppose that was you. I kept forgetting you.”

“You forgot about me?”

“At first I didn't. Back when I still knew what week and month it was. There were moments as well. There was clarity sometimes after I'd been Padfoot for a while. Then all of a sudden I'd remember how you took your tea or that one scar that you have behind your ear or your mouth but you sort of learn to hide the happy thoughts because that'll make the Dementors come and it's better not to have them at all than to have them and then feel how they're taken away again. So yeah, I made myself forget you and then I actually forgot you. Not for very long, mind you but that's what I did.”

Remus doesn't resist the compulsion to reach out this time. Their hands touch, their fingers tangle and the world continues spinning. Now that he has done it, it doesn't seem quite as frightening any longer.

“But you're remembering now,” he didn't expect it to come out as a sort of half-whisper but it does and he doesn't mind as much as he probably should. Betrayal of emotions. Treason of the most treacherous kind. Sirius shakes his head, then nods. Now, with his hair orderly trimmed and the lack of a beard, the gesture doesn't quite look like the picture of insanity anymore. The thought is strangely calming. There are new habits and old ones to both of them but the lines between those are starting to blur again. Sirius hasn't always shaken his head before answering a difficult question and Remus hasn't always tugged at his hair the way he does now but somehow there has never been a time when they have not done that. Staring at each other over the Prophet or food or no barrier of pretense at all will do that, he supposes.

“Yeah, I think so. I'm not there yet, though.”

Remus tries and almost manages not to feel the slight jump his heart does at the words.

“That's okay.”

“Yet,” Sirius says.

 _May-be, may-be, may-be,_ goes Remus's heart. May it be.

* * *

“Are- sometimes it all feels so terribly familiar, I think everything will inevitably go to shit again. I feel like I'm paranoid but I can't help it. There's going to be a war and, fuck, we won last time but we didn't and... am I going crazy? More than usual I mean,” thirty-four-year-old Sirius says one morning, looking at Remus in the stained bathroom mirror before shoving his toothbrush rather violently into his mouth. It is important for Remus to make the distinction because Sirius at twenty-one never would have admitted it. The trivial domesticity of their knocking limbs in Remus's tiny bathroom makes everything seem less daunting, less like a thing he wants to flee from. Shut your eyes, turn around, and run, run as fast as you can on your cursed feet because looking at it for too

long will give it meaning, will give it power and you cannot allow that. He wants to laugh sometimes at the hypocrisy of his own personality.

He spits toothpaste into the basin, rinses off his brush and splashes water on his face all while carefully avoiding looking at Sirius's reflection. He blinks water out of his eyes and then turns to look at Sirius's profile that is now slightly frowning at the mirror, either at himself or at Remus's irresponsiveness or maybe both, who would know these days. He takes a decision then because Sirius, memories 2/3 intact by now, with toothpaste stains on his shirt, deserves the truth.

“I'm scared as fuck, Sirius,” he finally admits and, oh, it feels like iodine on his chapped, bloodied hands. There is water dripping from his chin because he forgot to wash his towel and Sirius is _looking_ at him and there, suddenly, he wants Sirius to take his wet face in his wet hands and kiss him until he forgets what he has just confessed. He breathes a little deeper.

If you take an emotion, a thought, a dream, or anything really and look at it long enough, it stops being real. If you dissect it until it no longer resembles its original form at all, piece after piece dismantled on the examining table of your splintering self-control, it becomes an abstract concept without supporting walls. Acting on it would be stupid, unnecessary even because once you have distanced yourself enough from it, you create the illusion of never feeling anything at all. Do it long enough and you start believing it yourself. Do it long enough and every sign of emotion feels like betrayal, an overreaction because you have convinced yourself that you never actually feel as terrible as you think you do.

Sirius, as always, is the exception. So Remus doesn't try to retract the thought.

“I think I knew that. I just- this all feels too good. It can't last. We're a muggle plane crash. I never understood how planes even worked which, fuck, Moony, if that isn't fitting, but a crash is a crash and disaster is disaster and it's going to happen all over again. Only, I'm not sure if I have more or less to lose this time. It feels- it's good that I'm not freaking out on my own here is all.” Sirius's voice has become unbearably soft and Remus wants to kiss him right here in the morning sunlight streaming through the window. The bathroom has never been more beautiful than in this moment. Two broken men, one with Colgate smears on his cheeks and the corner of his mouth, the other still dripping water onto the tiles that they will later step into with their bare feet and their shadows have become something whole. _We can't fix each other, we never really could but you can hold me and I can hold you so that we don't fall apart while we fix ourselves._

The puzzle pieces: Sirius is the one who reaches out and wraps his arms around Remus's shoulders, pulling him in, hands on his back. He is trembling slightly and Remus gasps at the sudden contact. Closeness, blessed breath, sacred scent, hallowed heartbeat. Sirius grips him tighter and Remus never wants to let go. _If I die in this moment, it will be enough,_ he thinks, _if I never draw another breath, this will be enough._

* * *

Sometimes words are too much and sometimes they are not enough. Sirius no longer eats like a half-starved animal most days, he regularly takes showers now and sings along to stupid songs on the radio but sometimes his entire face crumbles mid-laugh, his hands start trembling and he flees into the garden or the bedroom or the kitchen, always away from Remus and there is nothing that either of them can do about it. One morning after breakfast Sirius presses a letter into Remus's hands and wordlessly sits down at the table. Remus knows what it says before he even unfolds it but reads through Albus Dumbledore's perfect cursive handwriting anyway. When he looks up again, Sirius's eyes are fixed somewhere above his shoulder, leaning on the hand he has wrapped in his own hair. Remus suddenly feels furious. With himself, the world, this war, and Albus fucking Dumbledore. He has convinced himself years ago that his own worth has always been determined by the amount of sacrifices he can make towards the Greater Good but now he understands what had driven Sirius to such abject anger whenever Dumbledore had sent him out on a particularly dangerous quest during the last war. If he had felt even an iota of the fury Remus feels now, it is a miracle he didn't shout a hell of a lot more than he did anyway.

Because what does The Greater Good mean if The Greater Good never cared about you in the first place?

“He wants to use Grimmauld Place. And he wants you to hide there,” Remus is impressed by how calm he manages to sound. Sirius doesn't answer at first, just leans back and breathes for a moment before finally looking at Remus again.

“I'm going to do it.”

Remus slams the letter onto the table and Sirius winces. But he doesn't have the mind to think about apologies right now.

“No. Fuck that. Do whatever you want with that house but I'm not fucking letting you go back there!”

“It's not really your decision, though, is it?” Sirius holds up his hands as if to prevent Remus from retaliating before he continues. “And it's not really mine either if we're honest. I can't stay here alone and if things go sour the way Dumbledore evidently expects them to, you're going to be busy being _useful_ so- it's a logical option, isn't it?”

He stands, the chair scraping on Remus's cracked kitchen tiles and walks through the long-doorless doorway to the living room where Remus can still make out the way he folds himself onto the sofa.

“Sirius!” Remus shouts aimlessly after him before giving his poor table one last shove and following. Sirius watches as he sits down next to him, desperately trying to steady the rampant fury still burning violently in his veins.

“Don't, Remus. I know what your point is already. But this is how I can be useful and maybe stop feeling so fucking _inadequate_ for a second,”

Sirius takes his hands and turns to face him fully and Remus fights valiantly against the urge to reach up and tuck the stray strands of black hair behind his ear. Every word, every silence, and every touch between them has been leading up to something. Remus can feel it building, it swells in his chest, waves of unfathomable oceans and the salty breeze of foreign, unknown seas. One day the thread will snap, the dam will break, and Remus wants to greet this flood with his arms and eyes wide open. It frightens Remus how unafraid he is. He swallows around the clamoring beat of his own heart because if there is one thing he cannot do, will not ever allow as long as there is air in his damned lungs, it is losing Sirius. The thought alone almost makes him sob. _Come here, children, and listen to the tale of Remus Lupin, phantom pain and cracked porcelain cups. The unimaginable hurt of your own heartbeat, perfectly intact. The loss of what you thought you'd never have._

“Fuck them,” he says, shoves the words into the air between them and the grey of Sirius's eyes shifts slightly.

“Fuck them,” more violently this time as he grips Sirius's fingers in return. “I'll come with you. I won't leave you there alone. They can't stop me, you can't either, don't even think about it. In case you have forgotten, I am a lot stronger than I look and I _will_ fight you.”

Sirius grants him the blessed, wondrous miracle of huffing out a laugh.

“I'm too selfish to even try. I _should,_ Merlin knows that house will probably try to kill you as soon as you set foot in it but... I'm not going to. If I'm going to be making bad decisions again, I'll at least commit to it,” he says quietly, too much air for the way the words make Remus's own breath stutter.

“Good. I'll make sure you at least make good ones when it's a life or death situation,” Remus answers, his hands still clasped tightly in Sirius's larger ones. He hates summer with a passion, higher body temperature, his aversion to short clothing and all but he treasures this kind of warmth more than anything in this moment. “When do we have to leave then?” he whispers to cover the sudden burst of impetuous ardor, watching Sirius trace the shape of the words on his mouth with his eyes. Sirius shakes his head slightly, “Not yet, I think. He's made hints in earlier letters and I think we still have at least until Christmas. He probably wanted to make sure I wouldn't give him a headache over it.”

Remus sighs in relief. That means months of recovery for Sirius still ahead. The feel of Sirius's hands makes him feel strangely unhinged, there is more air than he could ever try to breathe in. _Can you die of too much oxygen?_ He shifts slightly closer and reaches behind Sirius's neck to tug the washed-out label back into his shirt.

_I love you. I love you._

Sirius traps his hand midway between them when he retracts it and keeps his fingers there, circling Remus's wrist. They both watch with rapt attention as Sirius moves his thumb to cover Remus's pulse point. _Can you not feel what you do to me? I'd let you burn me to the fucking ground. You've done it already and I'd let you do it again._

“I don't think you even know how much I-,” Sirius starts and Remus's attention is undividedly drawn back to his eyes, “I loved you more than I could ever have tried to explain and it all sounds so stupid to say it out loud but... you were everything. I thought 'this is it' every week for the last month back there. I was sure you were the spy but I couldn't leave you. I sometimes hoped you'd finally get it over with and kill me so that I could stop wondering when it'd happen. We weren't even talking anymore at the end but I still couldn't fucking leave you.”

“It felt like you had burned a hole through my body,” Remus answers, slightly breathless. “I loved you and it still didn't matter, you know? I thought you played pretend with me for years and I fell for you because I was blinded by my own stupidity but if you had come to my doorstep and told me you loved me back, truly loved me, I would've done it all over again. You make me stupid, utterly idiotically stupid and I couldn't even bring myself to wish it had never happened.”

Sirius leans forward and for a moment Remus thinks he will kiss him but then his arms wrap around his neck and he moves closer until they are chest to chest and he breathes into Sirius's neck, his hair like a dark curtain around him.

“I'm sorry,” Sirius whispers and Remus feels the tears come before he can stop them.

“Me too,” he answers, probably snotty and half-buried in Sirius's hair but something wet falls onto his hands on Sirius's back and he knows that he is crying, too.

Remus has learnt how to trace his emotions until they are dulled, acceptable inconveniences in every other situation.

But Sirius has always been a mystery, Elgar's Enigma that Remus would gladly spend all his life contemplating. In this moment, however, with Sirius here in his arms, he realizes that he has held the key to its solution for a long time now. He is the secret counterpoint. Variations on a Theme and Remus fits onto all of them. Blessed harmony, perfect fifth: Sirius and Remus, Remus and Sirius or the strings you somehow never manage to untangle.

* * *

“What if I'm allergic to grass pollen?” Sirius rips out a handful of grass, opens the palm of his hand and continues to blow it into Remus's face. Remus spits out the few stalks that land in his mouth and throws the rest right back at him.

“You're not allergic to anything.”

Sirius tosses his head to the side and makes an indignant sound that seems rather more amused than offended. “How can you know that? Did you go on to become a healer while I was gone? I think I have most of the remembering down now, it's not as easy to fool me anymore, you should know.”

Remus smiles, “Because there's no grass pollen in September. And we've been sitting in the garden for actual months and you only just started whining.”

“I'm not whining. I am suffering. Truly suffering. If I die out here, it's going to be your fault.”

He winces and tries to cover it up with a shrug. Remus has rules carefully detailing what he is not allowed to think about only Sirius doesn't know about them and continues to break them for him on a regular basis. Even though Azkaban was deemed inescapable, death is the only thing you truly can never return from. Remus knows this better than many. They both wake each other up with nightmares more often than not but he has never dared mention what his are made of. He sees Sirius fall backwards into shadow over and over and over again while he is left to watch because once more, as always, there is nothing he can do. To hear Sirius's breath beside him whenever he wakes is the holiest relief he thinks possible. Curious really, how much you can treasure another person's lungs. Sirius seems to have noticed Remus's unease and presses a hand, residual grass still clinging to it, to the small of his back. Even through the fabric, it feels like burning. Remus moves away slightly so that Sirius's hand now rests close to his hip bone. _Stay like this, please._

“You can't touch me there,” he explains instead,” I'm wearing a heat patch and you could give me a burn.” _You already have and I don't know if I want to put it out._

“A muggle heat patch? How old are you?”

“Inside or outside?”

“Both.”

Remus tilts his head to look sideways at Sirius before bumping their knees together.

“Eighty-five or a hundred. Who really counts anymore.”

Sirius laughs, his hand is still on his back and Remus tries to think of Severus Snape's naked body to keep his breath steady.

* * *

They sit next to each at the kitchen table now and there is something so very riveting about their knocking elbows, their bumping shoulders as Sirius vehemently refuses to switch places. “I shouldn't have to sit somewhere else just because I'm left-handed. That's disrespectful, it's a valued family trait.”

Remus raises an eyebrow and taps his fingers against his tea cup. “Is that why they never forced you to use your right one?” Sirius takes a large bite of admittedly terrible toast and successfully grants Remus a prime view of half-chewed bread when he answers. Remus loves him. He wants to throw himself into the Atlantic. “Why the fuck would they do that? It means you're special or something.”

“Muggles do that sometimes. But it's supposedly not good for the children.”

“Well, Muggles are weird. No offense to your mum-”

“God rest her lovely soul.”

“Yeah, that. But I don't think I'll ever be able to truly understand them.”

“Me too,” Remus says and breaks off little crumbs of the crust that is left of his toast, throwing them onto his plate. “My mum was a Muggle but I don't think I ever really knew what that meant.”

Sirius leans against him for a moment and Remus wants to reach out and keep him there, wants to take Sirius by the back of his neck and pull their mouths together, wants to kiss the stupid half-chewed bread out of Sirius's mouth even, no matter how revolting that might sound. The drunk and inebriated often forget something such as dignity exists and sometimes Remus feels more than a little high off of Sirius's presence this close. Touch starvation, over a decade of loneliness, and being ridiculously in love: How does it affect the lycanthrope's mind? Study and research conducted and documented by Remus John Lupin, Professor of Nothing and member of no society at all.

Behold. They are all short of marbles and full of things unsaid, undone, and untried.

He puts a few of the crumbs into his mouth before gathering up his plate, cutlery, and tea cup and standing to bring them over to the sink. He turns the tap on, rinses his plate for a moment before grabbing one of the more hygienic looking sponges. Sirius's shadow in the waning light of the evening sun looks like it is stretching out towards him while he watches Remus's hands washing up very intently. This is what they have come to then, getting mildly aroused by house work and mutual domesticity, isn't that the dream. Remus snorts and turns his head back towards the sink. He can hear Sirius approaching but chooses to ignore him until he feels a tap on his cheek. Sirius is smiling at him and Remus suddenly wants to twist it into something deeper, something more frantic. He wants and he wants and he wants and he knows that he usually never _gets_ but this time, whatever it is they are doing, it seems like maybe, just maybe he will be lucky.

He dries his hands on his trousers and lets Sirius turn him around by his shoulders. He keeps his hands there, a promise, a claim, familiar warmth that fastens the knot in Remus's stomach. This feels like the premise to something, a prologue maybe where they failed at continuing the chapter.

“There's so much wrong with me, Merlin, Remus I don't know what the fuck I'm doing at any given time of the day. But I know right now, I've never been more sure.” As he steps closer, Remus tries desperately not to think. _Hold me tighter, throw me out the window or up against the cupboards, I'd drink poison from your lips and probably be grateful._ Poetics and their alluring depths of truths finally spoken, thoughts only half-filtered.

Their bodies paint a single shadow onto the kitchen tiles, there is dog hair on Sirius's shirt and he cannot _breathe._

_Please,_ Remus thinks wildly. _Please, just never leave._ Sirius does not leave. Sirius leans in and kisses him instead and for a long moment Remus feels like he might cry.

_This is too much,_ he thinks, hands slowly raising to cover the side of Sirius's neck. He hasn't kissed anyone in thirteen miserable, lonely, lonely years because no one had ever matched. Sirius: the tuning fork humming in the very marrow of his bones, 440 A, the only note Remus can sing and recognize immediately. He feels Sirius tilt his head up, slightly tugging at his curls to kiss him deeper, nearer, dearer. The way Remus responds might just resemble desperation. This is too much, too much and there are tears in his eyes that would spill if he were to open them but Sirius's teeth pull gently at his bottom lip and suddenly it doesn't matter so much anymore that Remus cannot seem to control this particular kind of feeling. His head is tilted awkwardly, Sirius isn't quite bending down enough and he is going to lose balance if he has to stand on his tip toes much longer but Remus's hand is on Sirius's neck and Sirius's fingers tighten in Remus's hair and it is not, has never been and never will be, enough.

* * *

“It's going to work,” Sirius says one morning, his left arm trapped underneath Remus's head and stretching out in all his delicious unapologetic nakedness, a Greek statue, a Roman God, what have you. Remus nods, hair mussed against the pillow.

“It has to,” Sirius repeats. Remus turns and reaches over to circle his midsection and face Sirius's profile. He presses a kiss to his jawbone just because it is right there, just because he can and he wants to. “Yes,” he agrees. “The universe is shit at second chances. It's a miracle we're both still alive as it is. It's got to work out.”

“We'll laugh about all this shit one day. You, Harry, and I, I mean. We're going to be 85 because I've developed a cure for lycanthropy by then so don't you worry your pretty little head about all that dying nonsense and we're going to be the coolest queer grandpas in the entire nation, the kind that talks about their amazing sex life at family gatherings and you'll call me 'love' in that incredibly attractive pitch your voice gets when you're either annoyed or turned on and we'll have the best Christmas parties in the fucking UK. I'll even go to church with you and get you off behind the confessional if that's your cup of tea, your jam, what floats your boat, so to speak. “

Remus shakes his head but he feels giddy with the stretch of his own grin there pressed against Sirius's cheek like a secret fingerprint. He loves him. He loves Sirius so much, he has to reach up, tug his head downwards and press the words into Sirius's mouth.

“I really need a shower,” Sirius sighs, twenty minutes later, sticky limbs and sticky sheets, tracing the freckles on Remus's cheek and pausing to kiss the scar there.

“I'll go in with you,” Remus says.

“The both of us won't fit under the spray.”

“We will if I'm kneeling.”

Sirius laughs and shakes his head. “You are insatiable, really. And people always think _I'm_ the delinquent. Well then, Mr. Lupin. Better make sure your joints are up to it or was that an empty promise?”

“Believe me, I can handle it. My promises are never empty.”

* * *

Sometimes they drink a glass of wine (or a few) sitting on the floor next to the sofa and listening to the radio. Sometimes they even sing along. Sirius has always loved to mock every half-successful artist's ability to come up with new versions of howling romantically at the moon. Remus, who has once rather drunkenly written 'howling at the moon' under 'further qualifications' on a CV he never sent out, is inclined to agree. Mike Oldfield, however, should henceforth be secluded from all discussion. He doesn't really understand what exactly is going on in the song but his currently questionable sobriety suffices for the rather enjoyable task of chanting “Carried away by a moonlight shadow!”, even during the instrumental parts. He likes music quite a bit, yes, thank you very much. Sirius has been looking at him for about two minutes now and Remus now knows he is very very welcome to look back. In the greater context of things, half a life spent apart weighing against the one they had gifted to each other when they were eleven and very poor excuses for humanity, they should be more afraid. Courage makes them Gryffindors and cannon fodder and friends who die a hundred years before they should have. They will fight until they bleed out, laugh in your face, and spit victory onto the ground. There is glory and there is folly and sometimes they are comrades in arms.

They will have to leave soon, the house is mostly prepared by now. Remus knows it will change things between them. Sirius's arm snakes around his neck and he pulls him in with a hand on his cheek until Remus's head rests on his lap and he chooses not to worry for a moment. His back is bent in a way that will undoubtedly give his nervous system a problem in a few minutes but he doesn't care. He'll stay here, crushed vertebrae notwithstanding, and sing “Moonlight Shadow” until his heart gives out and then some. They'll find their bodies a thousand years later, bones entangled and souls intertwined, right here in the living room. These two, they will say, looked in the eyes of hallowed humanity and stared right back. You with me and I with you and the rest will become history or ashes or the earth beneath which we are buried. This, give me this a thousand times over and maybe one day it will be enough.

“It'll be okay,” Sirius says, for the fourth time this evening and releases his hold on Remus. He takes a drink and smiles. Remus laughs because there is a war on. There's a war on and he has had this conversation before. Twenty or thirty-four, loving each other desperately or being desperately in love where is the difference really. He raises his head because he wants to look at Sirius and finds that maybe sometimes it doesn't matter. The greater Good, the Greater Good, the Greater Good. Death and torture, a promise broken and restored and here they are, in love and laughing, and shoving darkness' hands back with the glorious fire in their blood.

“I love you,” he says. “I love you so much.”

Sirius kisses his cheek and grips Remus's wrist over his pulse point. “I've eaten vomit flavored Berty Bott's Beans out of your mouth on a dare. I love you, too. I think I'd do it again.”

“I was trying to be sweet. Fuck you, monsieur Black.”

“You're drunk is what you are. It's okay, though, we have that in common as well.”

Inevitability and star-crossed lovers, here is my darkness and there is yours and together we make the universe, the most beautiful abyss. The bones of Remus's wrist and the tendons of Sirius's hands and two cups of tea on the kitchen counter. Something about the way their clothes are tangled on the bedroom floor and Sirius's shadow falls over him when he reaches out to turn the lights off at night.

* * *

“Hurry up with the record player and come out here before it's too late. Don't fucking curse the new year before it's even started!”

“Fuck you, it was your job to keep track of the time!” Remus throws back, laughing and eyeing the selected record suspiciously. He can hear Sirius's chuckle from the open garden door.

“What can I say, you _are_ rather distracting. Come on, two minutes left!”

Remus drops the needle down and hopes for the best before walking out into the garden behind Sirius.

“You're supposed to get less impatient with age, you know?” he says and Sirius winds his right arm around him to pull him closer.

“Yes yes. Pot kettle.”

Remus laughs and turns to press his cold nose into Sirius's warm neck. “I hide it a lot better than most people. Pretense, that's the secret. I'd have made a good actor in another life time. I think I'd look good in a classical tragedy.” Sirius shivers slightly before moving his hand to Remus's hair.

“No, I don't think so. I mean you'd look good in almost anything but you're made for fairy tales.”

“And you are my knight in shining armor?”

“If that's what you'd like? My point was more the _Happily Ever After_ but trust you to focus on semantics,” Sirius answers, burying his fingers in Remus's curls and tugging slightly to have him look up at him. Remus smiles and refrains from explaining the real meaning of the word _semantics_ even. Behind them Ron Asheton's guitar carries through the living room.

“I love you,” Sirius says and drops his hand to take Remus's instead.

“I love you, too,” Remus answers and he doesn't have to think about it for longer than the split second it takes for his neurons to transmit the message. He looks at his hand in Sirius's and hums the lyrics along to the Stooges from their record player. Remus at twenty or even thirty-four would never have thought this possible.

“ _It's 1969 okay. All across the USA.”_

Sirius shakes his head in false exasperation. “Well first of all we're in Wales and second, I didn't think old age would creep up on your memory that quickly, Moony. It's- oh, in fact it is going to be exactly thirty years later in about 20 seconds, isn't that a coincidence!”

“Old age, haha. Which one of us is almost 40?”

“How dare you! Those five-ish months I have on you have granted me wisdoms you could never even imagine.”

Remus risks turning away from Sirius to glance at his watch.

“Ten, Sirius.”

“Nine, I'll kiss you until you remember what year it is.”

“Eight. It's almost 1999, baby. I'm not Iggy Pop so my poorly done cowboy accent will have to be good enough for you,” Remus makes a half-hearted attempt at sing-songing. They are looking into the precipice of something greater. Fairy tale endings and war heroes that thought they wouldn't live to see twenty and stories that end after the curtain is already closed. Exit pursued by nothing for once, hand in hand, tangled breath, and more grey hair than they ever thought they would have the time to grow.

“Five, I think. I love you, shitty Iggy Pop accent or not.” To Remus, five seconds have rarely seemed longer. There is so much healing they all will have to do. Whenever Sirius still wakes him up at night, shouting and trapped in a dream where he is still in the ever-lasting shadowy clutches of Azkaban's bars and Harry floos over only to vomit violently in their bathroom, Remus remembers that no one ever taught them how to live after the fact. He has thirteen years of terrible to mediocre experience in the act of surviving past what he thought was the breaking point and even he has cried over accidentally removing the tea bag too early.

He has expected his imminent death since he was eight and old enough to understand why his mother cried after every full moon and why ever begin planning for a future you will never have or, at twenty one, a future you both cannot have and if you are completely honest, don't even want to see? The future, what is yet to come, to be continued. Remus has never thought he would stand with Sirius holding his hand and looking at him like everything that is beautiful and good in this world has suddenly decided to move to somewhere around Remus's eyes in the garden of their house and contemplate his fourtieth birthday.

“Three,” Sirius suddenly half-shouts and Remus joins, more laughter than voice. “Two. One!”

Somewhere in the distant and vague direction of the nearest city, fireworks explode and Remus pulls Sirius down by the nape of his neck to kiss him and kiss him and kiss him. They are alive, he can feel it in every last pore of his body, pouring his own ragged breath into Sirius's sacred lungs until he feels drunk with the potential of them here, kissing and loving each other through war and death and blood.

Sirius's hands move downward to pull Remus's hips in by his belt loops until their bodies are flush against each other. _I love you_ and Remus laughs against Sirius's lips. Every story has to begin somewhere, every chapter has an ending but Remus has never cared less. He wants to face the unknown future with Sirius, smiling and breathing by his side, to follow his stride and be followed in turn and the stars or the world or destiny can dash themselves to pieces against _them_ for once. Doom or die and Remus chooses the alluring promise of Sirius's mouth moving against his instead, in the garden or the bed where their bodies make the most beautiful of shapes against the sheets, or in a train to London for no reason other than looking at the London Eye until their eyes hurt.

**Author's Note:**

> Songs/pieces referenced in this fic in order of appearance:  
> Free Money- Patti Smith  
> Gloria: In Exelcis Deo- Patti Smith  
> Five Years- David Bowie  
> Variations on an Original Theme (Enigma)- Edward Elgar  
> Moonlight Shadow- Mike Oldfield  
> 1969- The Stooges


End file.
